Malaysia agrees on terms for restarting MH370 wreckage search
The decision will enable commencement of seabed search operations in a new location estimated to cover 15,000 sq km in the southern Indian Ocean
Updated 19 March 2025
Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has agreed to terms and conditions of an agreement with exploration firm Ocean Infinity to resume the search for the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, its transport minister said on Wednesday. Flight MH370, a Boeing 777, was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in 2014 in one of the world’s greatest aviation mysteries.
The decision will enable commencement of seabed search operations in a new location estimated to cover 15,000 sq km (5,790 sq miles) in the southern Indian Ocean, based on a “no find, no fee” principle, Minister Loke Siew Fook said.
Ocean Infinity will receive $70 million if the wreckage is successfully located, he said.
“The government is committed to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of the MH370 passengers,” Loke said in a statement. The government in December said it had agreed in principle with Ocean Infinity’s proposal to resume the hunt for MH370. The firm had conducted the last search for the plane that ended in 2018 but failed on two attempts.
Those followed an underwater search by Malaysia, Australia and China in a 120,000 sq km (46,332 sq mile) area of the southern Indian Ocean, based on data of automatic connections between an Inmarsat satellite and the plane. A ship that will look for the missing plane was deployed to its Indian Ocean search zone late last month, ship tracking data showed, even though a deal had yet to be signed with the government.
It was not immediately clear how long the search contract with Ocean Infinity would be. Loke had previously said it would cover an 18-month period.
Myanmar quake death toll nears 700 as international aid starts to arrive
Myanmar death toll at 694, Thailand toll 9
International relief effort underway, China aid team lands
Updated 44 min 27 sec ago
Reuters
BANGKOK: International aid began to arrive in Myanmar on Saturday as rescuers searched for survivors after a powerful earthquake devastated the Southeast Asian nation amid concerns the number killed would soar.
The death toll in Myanmar jumped to 694 with 1,670 injured, the military government said, up sharply from the 144 dead that state media reported on Friday.
“Infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and buildings were affected, leading to casualties and injuries among civilians. Search and rescue operations are currently being carried out in the affected areas,” the junta said in a statement issued on state media.
The junta leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, had warned on Friday of more deaths and injuries as he invited “any country” to provide help and donations.
A Chinese rescue team arrived on Saturday while Russia and the US offered aid in the disaster, which struck at lunchtime on Friday and damaged hundreds of buildings in neighboring Thailand.
The United States Geological Service’s predictive modelling estimated the death toll could exceed 10,000 people in Myanmar, and that losses could be greater than the value of the country’s gross domestic product.
Susan Hough, a scientist in the USGS’s Earthquake Hazards Program, told Reuters it was difficult to predict an earthquake’s death toll, for various reasons including timing.
When an earthquake strikes during the daytime, as it did in Myanmar, “people are awake, they have their wits about them, they are better able to respond,” she said. Searching for workers in tower rubble
Much of the devastation was in Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, close to the epicenter of the quake.
In the Thai capital Bangkok, 1,000 km (620 miles) from the epicenter a rescue mission was stepped up on Saturday to find construction workers trapped under the rubble of a collapsed 33-story tower.
A 37-strong team from China landed in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital, early on Saturday, carrying medicine and equipment to detect signs of life with them, the Chinese embassy said in a Facebook post.
Russia said it was sending 120 experienced rescuers as well as doctors and search dogs, state news agency TASS reported.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he had spoken with officials in Myanmar and that his administration would be providing some form of assistance.
Hough, who worked in Myanmar on the local seismology network, said the country’s mix of modern structures and traditional buildings would also play a role. Traditional buildings “are going to be less potentially deadly than concrete,” she said.
Thai authorities said nine people had died and 101 were missing in Bangkok, mostly laborers trapped in the rubble of the collapsed tower.
“We will do everything, we will not give up on saving lives, we will use all resources,” Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said at the site on Saturday, as excavators moved debris and drones scoured the rubble searching for survivors.
The Thai capital ground to a halt on Friday and Chadchart said hundreds of people had spent the night in city parks, but he said the situation was improving.
Convicted of bilking investors, Nikola founder and Trump donor gets a presidential pardon
Trevor Milton donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, says election watchdog
Trump said Friday that Milton “did nothing wrong” and that the Southern District of New York’s prosecutors were “a vicious group of people”
Updated 29 March 2025
AP
WASHINGTON: Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year for fraud, was pardoned by President Donald Trump, the White House confirmed Friday.
The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.
Milton, 42, and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
At Milton’s trial, prosecutors say a company video of a prototype truck appearing to be driven down a desert highway was actually a video of a nonfunctioning Nikola that had been rolled down a hill.
Milton had not been incarcerated pending an appeal.
Milton said late Thursday on social media that he had been pardoned by Trump.
“I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence,” Milton said.
The White House confirmed the pardon Friday, though there was no notice of a pardon on the White House website.
When asked by a reporter in a news conference Friday why he pardoned Milton, Trump said it was “highly recommended by many people.” Trump suggested that Milton was prosecuted because he supported the president.
“They say the the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump said.
Trump went on to say that Milton “did nothing wrong” and that the Southern District of New York’s prosecutors were “a vicious group of people.”
During his securities fraud case, Milton was defended by two lawyers with connections to Trump: Marc Mukasey, who has represented the Trump Organization; and Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi, who Trump appointed as US Attorney General.
Also Friday, Trump commuted the sentence of Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson, just before he was due to report to prison for a nearly 10-year sentence in a financial conspiracy case.
Trump has wasted little time in using his pardon power since beginning his second term. Hours after taking office, he wiped clean the records of roughly 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. The next day, Trump announced that he had pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website for selling drugs.
Ulbricht had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after a high-profile prosecution that highlighted the role of the Internet in illegal markets.
Nikola, which was a hot start-up and rising star on Wall Street before becoming enmeshed in scandal, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February.
Milton, convicted of fraud, was portrayed by prosecutors as a con man six years after he had founded the company in a basement in Utah.
Prosecutors said Milton falsely claimed to have built its own revolutionary truck that was actually a General Motors product with Nikola’s logo stamped onto it.
Called as a government witness, Nikola’s CEO testified that Milton “was prone to exaggeration” when pitching his venture to investors.
Milton resigned in 2020 amid reports of fraud that sent Nikola’s stock prices into a tailspin. Investors suffered heavy losses as reports questioned Milton’s claims that the company had already produced zero-emission 18-wheel trucks.
The company paid $125 million in 2021 to settle a civil case against it by the SEC. Nikola didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
The US District Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment on Milton’s pardon.
At the time of his conviction US Attorney Damian Williams said, “Trevor Milton lied to investors again and again — on social media, on television, on podcasts, and in print. But today’s sentence should be a warning to start-up founders and corporate executives everywhere — ‘fake it till you make it’ is not an excuse for fraud, and if you mislead your investors, you will pay a stiff price.”
The White House said Trump also pardoned on Thursday cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed. The three men founded and help run the cryptocurrency exchange BITMEX, which was ordered to pay a $100 million fine earlier this year after prosecutors said it “willfully flouted US anti-money laundering laws to boost revenue.” Hayes, Delo and Reed pleaded guilty in 2022 to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and were sentenced to probation.
US vice president presses takeover of Greenland, says Denmark not keeping it safe from Russia and China
JD Vance asks people of Greenland to partner with the US
Greenland prime minister says US visit shows lack of respect
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters
NUUK, Greenland/WASHINGTON: US Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not doing a good job keeping Greenland safe and suggested the United States would better protect the semi-autonomous Danish territory that President Donald Trump has pressed to take over.
During a visit to the US military base at Pituffik in the north of the Arctic island, Vance said the US has no immediate plans to expand its military presence on the ground but will invest in resources including additional naval ships.
He pledged respect for Greenland’s sovereignty but also suggested the territory would come to see the benefit of partnering with the US, in remarks the Danish prime minister called unfair.
“Denmark has not kept pace and devoted the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and other nations,” Vance said. He gave no details of the alleged incursions.
Trump has frequently said that the United States has a security imperative to acquire the island, which has been controlled by Denmark since 1721.
Vance’s sharp attacks against Denmark — a longtime US ally and NATO member — offered another example of the little regard the Trump administration holds for traditional US alliances.
Vance, in particular, has not held back in his messaging. He lectured European officials on free speech and illegal migration on the continent during an overseas trip last month and later accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not showing enough gratitude to Trump during a contentious meeting at the White House.
In Greenland on Friday, Vance said Russia, China and other nations are taking an “extraordinary interest” in Arctic passageways, naval routes and minerals in the region. He said the US will invest more resources, including naval ships and military icebreakers that will have a greater presence in the country.
People with Greenland flags attend a demonstration in support of Greenland in front of Greenland's representation in Christianshavn, Copenhagen, Denmark on March 28, 2025. (AFP)
As Greenlanders expressed deep unease about the visit, Vance vowed the people of Greenland would have “self-determination” and the US would respect its sovereignty.
“I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States,” Vance said. “We can make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection. And I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”
His remarks came just hours after a new broad government coalition that aims to keep ties with Denmark for now was presented in the capital, Nuuk.
Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said the US visit signalled a “lack of respect,” while Danish leaders expressed their commitment to Greenland.
“For many years we have stood side by side with the Americans under very difficult circumstances. Therefore the vice president’s description of Denmark is not a fair one,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement to Danish news agency Ritzau.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Vance “has a point that we haven’t done enough, but I’m a little provoked because it’s also the Americans who haven’t done enough.”
Rasmussen said that the US today has a base with 200 soldiers, while during the Cold War the Americans had 17 military installations in Greenland with 10,000 soldiers.
As Vance’s visit was underway, Trump told reporters at the White House the US needs Greenland to ensure the “peace of the entire world.”
“We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of, ‘Do you think we can do without it?’ We can’t,” Trump said.
Trump said Greenland’s waterways have “Chinese and Russian ships all over the place” and the United States will not rely on Denmark or anybody else to handle the situation.
A view shows the city of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 28, 2025. (REUTERS)
Scaled-back trip
Vance greeted members of the US armed forces shortly after his arrival, thanking them for their service on the remote base located 750 miles (1,200 km) north of the Arctic Circle. The outside temperature at Pituffik was minus 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-19 C).
Vance’s wife Usha, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright accompanied him on the trip.
Under the terms of a 1951 agreement, the US is entitled to visit its base whenever it wants, as long as it notifies Greenland and Copenhagen. Pituffik is located along the shortest route from Europe to North America and is vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.
The island, whose capital is closer to New York than it is to the Danish capital Copenhagen, boasts mineral, oil and natural gas wealth, but development has been slow and the mining sector has seen very limited US investment. Mining companies operating in Greenland are mostly Australian, Canadian or British.
A White House official has said Greenland has an ample supply of rare earth minerals that would power the next generation of the US economy.
A view shows the city of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 28, 2025. (REUTERS)
The question now is how far Trump is willing to push his idea of taking over the island, said Andreas Oesthagen, a senior researcher on Arctic politics and security at the Oslo-based Fridtjof Nansen Institute.
“It is still unlikely that the United States will use military means,” he told Reuters.
“But it is unfortunately likely that President Trump and Vice President Vance will continue to use other means of pressure, such as ambiguous statements, semi-official visits to Greenland, and economic instruments,” he added.
Polls have shown that nearly all Greenlanders oppose becoming part of the United States. Anti-American protesters, some wearing “Make America Go Away” caps and holding “Yankees Go Home” banners, have staged some of the largest demonstrations ever seen in Greenland.
On Thursday, residents in Nuuk planted Greenlandic flags in the snow and a cardboard sign in English that said “Our Land. Our Future.”
Nielsen on Friday urged political unity. His pro-business party, the Democrats, which favors a gradual independence from Denmark, emerged as the biggest party in a March 11 election.
“At a time when we as a people are under pressure, we must stand together,” Nielsen told a press conference.
A look at who has been detained or deported in a US crackdown on mostly pro-Palestinian protesters
Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel
Updated 29 March 2025
AP
WASHINGTON: People with ties to American universities, most of whom have shown support for pro-Palestinian causes, have been detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
President Donald Trump and other officials have accused protesters and others of being “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many protesters have said they were speaking out against Israel’s actions in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Trump’s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests. More than half a dozen people are known to have been taken into custody or deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in recent weeks. Rumeysa Ozturk
Federal officers detained 30-year-old Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk on Tuesday as she walked along a street in suburban Boston. A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said without providing evidence that an investigation found Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” which is also a US-designated terrorist group.
This contributed photo shows Rumeysa Ozturk on an apple-picking trip in 2021. (AP)
Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts University to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel. Ozturk has been taken to an ICE detention center in Louisiana. A US District judge in Massachusetts on Friday said Ozturk can’t be deported to Turkiye without a court order and gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys. Mahmoud Khalil
This month, immigration enforcement agents arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a legal US resident, Palestinian activist and graduate student who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. The administration has said it revoked Khalil’s green card because his role in the campus protests amounted to antisemitic support for Hamas. He is fighting deportation.
Khalil served as a negotiator for Columbia students as they bargained with university officials over ending their campus encampment last spring. He was born in Syria and is married to an American citizen. His lawyers urged a federal judge on Friday to free their client from a Louisiana immigration detention center and argued his case should not be moved to Louisiana courts. The judge said he would issue a decision soon. Yunseo Chung
Yunseo Chung is a Columbia student and lawful US resident who moved to America from Korea as a child. Chung attended and was arrested at a sit-in this month at nearby Barnard College protesting the expulsion of students who participated in pro-Palestinian activism.
The Department of Homeland Security wants to deport Chung and has said she “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested on a misdemeanor charge. A judge ordered immigration agents not to detain Chung while her legal challenge is pending. Badar Khan Suri
Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown scholar from India, was arrested outside his Virginia home and detained by masked Homeland Security agents on allegations that he spread Hamas propaganda. Suri’s attorney wrote in a court filing that he was targeted because of his social media posts and his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.” Suri holds a visa authorizing him to be in the US as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a US citizen, according to court documents.
Suri was taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are seeking his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings. Leqaa Kordia
Leqaa Kordia, a resident of Newark, New Jersey, was detained and accused of failing to leave the US after her student visa expired. Federal authorities said Kordia is a Palestinian from the West Bank and that she was arrested at or near Columbia during pro-Palestinian protests. Columbia has said it has no record of her being a student there.
Kordia is being held in an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, according to a government database. Ranjani Srinivasan
Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian citizen and doctoral student at Columbia, fled the US after immigration agents searched for her at her university residence. The Trump administration has said it revoked Srinivasan’s visa for “advocating for violence and terrorism.” Srinivasan opted to “self-deport.”
Officials didn’t say what evidence they have that Srinivasan advocated violence. Her lawyers deny the accusations, and she told The New York Times that she didn’t help to organize protests at Columbia. Alireza Doroudi
University of Alabama doctoral student Alireza Doroudi of Iran was detained by ICE on Tuesday. David Rozas, a lawyer representing Doroudi, says Douridi was studying mechanical engineering. His student visa was revoked in 2023, but his lawyer has said he was eligible to continue his studies as long as he maintained his student status and met other requirements of his entry into the United States.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Friday that the arrest was made over the revocation of Doroudi’s student visa, saying he “posed significant national security concerns.” A spokesperson said they could not share additional details.
Unlike some other students targeted by ICE, Dorudi’s lawyer said there is no indication that his client was involved in any political protests. Doroudi told his lawyer he isn’t aware of any suspected criminal activity or violations. He was detained in Alabama but will be moved to an immigration facility in Jena, Louisiana. Dr. Rasha Alawieh
Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist from Lebanon who previously worked and lived in Rhode Island, was deported this month, even though a federal judge ordered that she not be removed until a hearing could be held. Homeland Security officials said Alawieh was deported as soon as she returned to the US from Lebanon, despite having a US visa, because she “openly admitted” supporting former Hezbollah leaderHassan Nasrallah. Alawieh told officers she followed him for his religious and spiritual teachings and not his politics, court documents said.
She was to start work at Brown University as an assistant professor of medicine. Stephanie Marzouk, Alawieh’s lawyer, has said she will fight to get the 34-year-old doctor back to the US Momodou Taal
Momodou Taal is a doctoral student at Cornell University whose visa was revoked after he participated in campus demonstrations.
Taal, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Gambia, has asked a federal judge to halt his detention during his court challenge. The government says it revoked Taal’s student visa because of his alleged involvement in “disruptive protests.”
His attorneys say the 31-year-old doctoral student in Africana studies was exercising free speech rights. Taal said he will surrender to immigration authorities if the court determines the government is acting legally. Taal said in a court declaration that “I feel like a prisoner already, although all I have done is exercise my rights.”
Remaining USAID staff fired, Trump says Myanmar will still get earthquake aid
Thousands of USAID staff and Foreign Service officers assigned to the agency learned in an internal memo that all positions not required by law would be eliminated in July and September
Updated 29 March 2025
Reuters
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration told Congress on Friday it would cut nearly all remaining jobs at the US Agency for International Development and shut the agency, even as Trump promised that the US would provide assistance to Myanmar following a devastating earthquake.
Humanitarian aid experts expressed alarm at the new cuts to an agency whose humanitarian aid has gained Washington influence and saved lives across the globe for more than 60 years. USAID plays a major role in coordinating earthquake assistance.
Thousands of USAID staff and Foreign Service officers assigned to the agency learned in an internal memo that all positions not required by law would be eliminated in July and September.
The memo reviewed by Reuters was sent to staff by Jeremy Lewin, the agency’s acting deputy administrator and a member of billionaire Elon Musk’s job-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE oversaw a first round of cuts to USAID last month.
The State Department notification to Congress of the job cuts, also seen by Reuters, said USAID missions worldwide would be closed and the agency’s remaining functions would be folded into State.
Cuts at the agency have thrown humanitarian efforts around the world into turmoil. The latest notice came on the day that a powerful earthquake hit Thailand and Myanmar, toppling buildings and killing scores of people. USAID has historically played a major role in coordinating disaster relief efforts.
A US appeals court on Friday
ruled that Musk and DOGE can keep making cuts to USAID while they appeal a lower court order that had barred them from doing so.
US Representative Gregory Meeks, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that closing USAID was illegal and aimed at withdrawing the US “from its global leadership role with as much cruelty and disruption as possible.”
The exact number of personnel being fired was not immediately available. As of March 21, there were 869 US direct hire personnel on active duty and working, while 3,848 others were on paid administrative leave, according to Stand Up for Aid, a grassroots advocacy group.
The terminations also included thousands of Foreign Service officers on assignment to USAID around the globe, according to a source familiar with the matter.
In his memo, Lewin said agency personnel worldwide would shortly receive emailed termination notices giving them the choice of being fired on July 1 or September 2.
Over the next three months, the State Department would assume USAID’s remaining “life-saving and strategic aid programming,” he said, adding that USAID personnel will not automatically be transferred to the department, which would conduct “a separate and independent hiring process.”
Trump in January ordered a 90-day freeze of all US foreign aid and a review of whether aid programs were aligned with his policy. He claimed without evidence that Musk had found fraud at the agency, which he said was run by “radical left lunatics.”
Musk and DOGE gained access to USAID’s payment and email systems, froze many payments and told much of its staff they were being placed on leave. On February 3, Musk wrote on X that he had “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
On Friday, a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had notified the US Congress of its intent to reorganize USAID, saying the agency had “strayed from its original mission long ago.”
“We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,” Rubio said.
The decision to cut the remaining USAID jobs sparked concern among humanitarian aid experts, who said the firings and funding cuts would prevent a concerted US response to the earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand.
In a post on X, Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who is president of Refugees International, called the move “a total abdication of decades of US leadership in the world.”
He said the firings will cut “the last remnants of the team that would have mobilized a USAID disaster response” to the earthquake.
Trump on Friday said he had spoken with officials in Myanmar about the earthquake and that the US would provide assistance.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the changes at USAID would not affect the administration’s ability to deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, adding she could not give a timeline.
The former USAID disaster response chief told Reuters the Trump administration’s massive personnel and funding cuts have “kneecapped” the agency’s ability to send disaster response teams to Thailand and Myanmar, opening the way to China and other US rival countries.
“I suspect we will see very shortly Chinese teams showing up, if they haven’t already, possibly Turkish, Russian, Indian teams really making their presence known in support of people that are really suffering right now in Thailand and Burma, and the US won’t be there,” said Sarah Charles, who served as assistant USAID administrator for humanitarian affairs until February 2024, using the former name of Myanmar.
Charles said contracts with urban search and rescue teams from Los Angeles and Virginia had been “turned back on” after being cut.
But, she said commercial contracts for transporting those teams remained cut and non-governmental aid groups that normally would provide emergency water, sanitation and medical help had laid off staff or run out of funds due to Trump’s foreign aid freeze.
“It’s really devastating to watch in real time,” she said.
Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80 percent of all USAID programs had been canceled.
